An RPS Symposium - Papers Presented

Following the success of the previous Good Picture Symposia, the Imaging Science Group of the Royal Photographic Society held another in its series of tutorial seminars (on 16 December 2008) on selected technical aspects of Digital Imaging. The aim of these lectures and discussions is to provide imaging practitioners, keen amateurs and students with insights into Digital Imaging and provide some tools and guidelines for assessing cameras and output. Some of the papers presented may be downloaded (see links below) by kind permission of the authors, as and when the files become available to us.

Programme

Prof. Geoff Attridge - Digital and Analogue Imaging Parallels
University of Westminster
Silver halide and digital photographic systems are introduced in terms of the "imaging chain". Visual properties of the two imaging systems are followed from acquisition to processing: the tone and colour reproduction, micro-image properties and the generation of artefacts are compared.

Dr. Graeme Awcock - Phantastic Photosites III - Are Photons Coloured?
University of Brighton
This presentation forms the third in the short "Phantastic Photosites" series, which have been aimed at disclosing the wonders that are performed by the engineers who deliver the technology necessary to enable us to capture pictures in digital form. This presentation will investigate the issue of capturing colour information. It will introduce the conventional 'Bayer matrix' strategy, which is used in nearly all designs and then will investigate the radically alternative Foveon™ design to see what it has to offer.

John Smith - Digital Infrared Photography
University of Westminster
The demise of many popular infrared (IR) films has coincided with the explosion of the consumer DSLR market. Digital cameras do, of course, have their limitations but their inherent IR sensitivity offers many advantages over film and has widened the variety of applications for which photographic IR imaging is used. This presentation will address the pros and cons of various designs of digital cameras and sensors, highlighting their suitability (or otherwise) to particular applications.

Tom Williams - Image Stabilisation
Imaging Consultant
A recent addition to most digital cameras is a facility to compensate automatically for camera shake, usually referred as "image stabilisation". The lecture will describe the various ways in which this is achieved and compare the possible advantages and disadvantages of the various techniques. An indication will be given of the level of compensation that in the author's experience such a facility provides.

Andy Golding - Digital Imaging and its Implications for Lighting
University of Westminster
Andy Golding is head of the department of Photography and Film at the University of Westminster and has researched what are the unique lighting needs when using digital rather than film cameras. During his talk Andy will discuss the challenges and solutions of lighting scenes to be taken using digital cameras.

Jeff Maynard - Protecting and Managing Your Digital Assets (1.5Mb PDF)
IT Entrepreneur
The digital revolution has brought its own series of problems often overlooked until after disaster strikes. The speaker has significant expertise in the areas of business continuity and data management and will outline the pitfalls that await the unwary digital photographer; a series of simple workflow processes will be described to protect digital assets and ensure that they can be recovered and retrieved as and when the photographer needs them. All the steps will be illustrated with real-world examples and recommendations.

Mike Stroud - Online Photofinishing - The 21st Century Sausage Machine?
Imaging Consultant
Normal behaviour for a reasonably tech-savvy digital photographer is to use the best equipment they can afford, shoot using the highest resolution at their disposal and saving in the least lossy on of their pictures. Then they send them for printing via the internet or an in-store photo kiosk, safe in the knowledge that their files must arrive at the destination unchanged because that's the way computers work. But then everybody used to think there was only meat in sausages ...